Watch Israeli filmmaker Yael Bartana's docudrama trilogy

Dec 07, 2017, 12:26 IST
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Harshita Mishra

Explore the concept of nationality at the screening of a docudrama trilogy by Israeli filmmaker Yael Bartana

The world is an ever-changing landscape of socio-political identities. How, then, does one make sense of indelible concepts like nationality and statehood. Head to a screening of the trilogy, And Europe Will Be Stunned, by internationally-acclaimed Israeli filmmaker, Yael Bartana, to seek answers to some of these questions.

Stills from Zamach

“My films were made in a context that is quite different from here, and I’m excited to see how new audiences perceive it,” shares Bartana, whose works deal with identity and belonging. The first instalment in the trilogy, Mary Koszmary (Nightmares), explores the longing for a Jewish past, anti-Semitism and xenophobia, through a young political activist who urges three million Jews to come back to Poland.

The True Finn

The second film Mur i wieÅ¼a (Wall and Tower) is set in the Polish capital, Warsaw, where a newly constructed kibbutz tower evokes the heroism of Jewish ancestors. In the final film, Zamach (Assassination), Bartana imagines a near future where the funeral ceremony of an assassinated leader of the Jewish Renaissance movement unifies a new movement.

Yael Bartana

The trilogy will be followed by a screening of Bartana’s experimental project True Finn, where eight Finnish individuals lived together for seven days and the subsequent discussions and planned experiments were filmed to explore the Finnish identity. Bartana will have a discussion after the screening with city-based artist and filmmaker Shaina Anand, who curated the New Medium section at this year’s MAMI Film Festival.